


Lost And Found

by PowerOfFunk



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Hostage Situations, Kidnapping, M/M, Missing Persons, Missing in Action
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 01:38:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7870513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PowerOfFunk/pseuds/PowerOfFunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He carefully put the laptop down and turned to face Mycroft.</p>
<p>“Missing?”</p>
<p>John had made a deal with the army in order to pay for going to university and medical school. Not long after he had finished he had been sent to Afghanistan, where there was a shortage of medical personnel. That had been almost three years ago. They had exchanged emails and phone calls whenever they could, but they hadn't seen each other since John left.</p>
<p>“The five other men in his squad were found dead this morning after a routine patrol in Kandahar, but there was no sign of him.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The ancient art of just posting the first few paragraphs as a summary when you can't remember quite what happens...

He carefully put the laptop down and turned to face Mycroft.

“Missing?”

John had made a deal with the army in order to pay for going to university and medical school. Not long after he had finished he had been sent to Afghanistan, where there was a shortage of medical personnel. That had been almost three years ago. They had exchanged emails and phone calls whenever they could, but they hadn't seen each other since John left.

“The five other men in his squad were found dead this morning after a routine patrol in Kandahar, but there was no sign of him.”

Sherlock's face was blank and disbelieving, but only for s second as it quickly turned to rage.

“How could you let this happen?! You were supposed to be looking after him!”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft's face looked as calm as usual to the untrained eye, but Sherlock could see the pity in his eyes and it only served to make him angrier. “You know very well that he asked not to be treated differently. I had to respect his requ-”

“Get out. Go back to your office and don't come back until you find him. I want all the information on the attack, as well as information about the surrounding area and enemy actions.”

“I can't-”

“Yes you can. Now is not the time Mycroft.”

He watched with a stony glare as his brother turned and left the flat.

 

 

A few hours later, and Sherlock was sat in front of the information that he had requested. He has pictures of the scene of the attack. There are five men, thankfully none of them John, spreadeagled on the patchy grass, covered in blood, bits of gore and brains splattered on the ground around them, as well as their fellow soldiers.

As he looks at the picture he tries very hard not to think about what Mycroft had told him as he had handed him the pictures.

“We're doing everything we can, Sherlock. I'm doing everything we can; but I need to make sure that you know that just because they haven't found his body... it's no guarantee that he's still alive, and if he is, and we do get him back... he probably won't be in the state that you remember him...”

Mycroft had left after that, without another word. Sherlock had known that what Mycroft had said was true. He had known it before the words ever left his mouth, but he had still hated him for saying it.

But he decided to reject the idea. A few days ago, he had received his last email from John, where the doctor had told him that he would be coming home a couple of months early, making it just a few more weeks until they saw each other. That email was still open on his laptop now. He had reread it countless times that morning.

John never lied to him. If he said he was coming home early, then he was coming home early. This was definitely one thing that John wouldn't let anything stop him from. They hadn't seen each other for the better part of three years. It was important.

From the pictures alone he could see that it had been an ambush. Three of the five had been shot in the head, the other two in the head. They were all lying within ten feet of one another, and in a relatively straight line. That was how soldiers always walked on patrol in case of IEDs, following in one another's footsteps for safety. The fact that they were still in the same positions meant that they had had no time to run.

Someone had been waiting for them. The only irregularity in the line was between the fourth and fifth persons, where the gap was larger, closer to twenty feet. Where John was, his brain supplied. There was still a blood patch on the floor though, but not much. Flesh wound, or just taken away quickly?

He tried his best to distance his emotions from the case. It was getting hard to concentrate as he imagined John in pain, lying in the sandy grass, bleeding out as someone dragged him away, to somewhere dark and cold where there was no chance of help finding him...

“No.” he told himself firmly. That wouldn't do anything to help John. Think.

Out of all of them, only John had been taken. Why? They wouldn't have bothered if he had of been dead like the others. Which meant that either he was the only one who had survived the attack, or he had been the one that they had been after. From the wounds on the others, they would have been killed almost instantly, so that they had no chance to fight back. Why wouldn't they have been able to do the same to John if he had been taken unawares?

What with it being a planned attack, the fact remained that they must have been after something. John was the only thing that was missing.

'Okay,' He thought to himself, applying a new nicotine patch to join the other two already clinging to his left forearm. 'So they were after John.'

There were only three reasons they would have been after John;

John had information that they needed.  
They were in need of a medic.  
They wanted to use John, specifically John against someone.

The first one was obviously incorrect. John was a doctor. Relatively low military rank, obviously not even the highest ranking in the squad that he had been in at the time. There was nothing that he would have known that no-one else would. No, there was no reason for him to be specifically targeted for that.

The second was more plausible. The Taliban needed medics too, and if they had any of their own, they were probably not as well trained as those in the British army. John would have been wearing the white band on his arm with the red cross, clearly marking him as a medic, but it still didn't seem quite right.

He could see from the attached map that the nearest cover was too far away for Taliban weapons to shoot that accurately, even with twenty twenty vision and hands as steady as a dead man, and chance? Five times? No. it had to have been a high powered rifle of some kind.

Which left only the third option. John had been taken to get to someone personal in his life. Who? No-one local to that area could possibly have known personal details of John's life. The weapons used as well meant that either someone else had done it or at least had given the Taliban weapons in exchange for them finding him.

More to the point, who did John know that could be influential in Afghanistan? Mycroft? They didn't know each other that well, and as much as he knew that Mycroft like John, and he did, even if he never showed it and he was fairly sure that John hadn't realised it, he would never be prepared to compromise his job for anyone, perhaps not even Sherlock.

He texted Mycroft any areas on the maps that looked like likely places to take him, but in reality this was more Mycroft's area than his, and anything that he had seen Mycroft had probably known since he had first received the information.

There wasn't anything else that he could readily see from the pictures.

 

An hour later and he was still sat on the sofa staring at the pictures, willing them to tell him where John was when his phone began to ring.

Idly he picked it up without looking and answered in a bitter tone of voice. “Sherlock Holmes.”

“Sherlock. It's Lestrade. I need you to come down and look at a body for me.”

“I can't.”

“What do you mean you can't? Yesterday you sent me thirty seven messages to tell me that you were bored and you wanted a case!”

“Something's come up. Look, just tell me what you can over the phone and I'll help if I can.”

Lestrade humphed down the phone, obviously annoyed at Sherlock's sudden one eighty, but took a deep breath and began to fill him in anyway.

“Okay, we're at a warehouse by the side of the river, industrial area... there's one body. Male, probably early thirties... dark blond hair, average height, average build... cause of death looks like a gunshot wound to the shoulder. What's that?” his voice grew slightly fainter for a second, obviously talking to someone else for a moment as Sherlock heard other murmurings.

'For God's sake,' he thought as he rubbed his forehead. He was trying to help the man and he wasn't even paying attention to the phone call.

“Okay, we've just got an ID in the Vic... he's called... John Watson."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The game is revealed...

Sherlock dropped the phone, and it wasn't until he heard the tinny voice of Lestrade calling him through the phone that he was on the floor desperately scrabbling for the phone.

“Y-yes.” There was no way it was the same one. He was just jumpy because he was worried. John was missing, but he was in Afghanistan. But that wasn't totally right. He had already said that it looked like someone was else was involved in the incident... He had to know. “Text me the exact address. I'll be there in twenty minutes.”

* * *

He only vaguely remembered throwing some money at the cabbie before he was standing frozen in front of a disused warehouse by the river. What if it was him? What if it really was his John?

“Sherlock. Sherlock!”

“What?!” he yelled back at Lestrade.

“Sherlock, I've been talking to you for about two minutes now, what's wrong with you?”

Sherlock swallowed and shifted on his feet, regaining his composure as best he could. “Nothing. Let's go.” he strode into the building confidently with Lestrade following him.

It wasn't a large warehouse, and it was all one large space, with some catwalks higher up. There was Donovan in the center of the room with Anderson and the rest of the forensics team, as well as a few uniformed officers, and there, unmistakeable was a dead body.

Usually they brought him a sense of excitement, of intrigue, but today, all he felt was dread, horror, and outright fear that it was John. He told himself that he was being ridiculous. John and Watson were both common names.

He half ran to the body, and when he saw the face he almost sank to his knees.

His eyes burned and clouded over, his blood pounding in his ears and he felt faint as he looked down at the body of someone who was definitely not John.

“We found some powder on the floor before you got here, looked like heroin but we've sent it off to the lab to make sure, and there was a bottle of morphine in his pocket. We think it might have been a drugs deal gone wrong.”

“Wrong. He's a male nurse.” Medical. “He lives in Camden, shared house. Stealing drugs from the hospital he works at.” He looked at the proffered morphine bottle, and then at the man's arms. “Doesn't take it himself, so he's selling it.”

“Yeah,” Anderson butted in, “He's selling it to the guys who shot him! Drugs deal. Simple as.”

“Don't be an idiot Anderson. He can't steal enough to sell to more than a few people a week without being noticed, and the body has been clearly executed.2

“What? In the shoulder? Don't they normally execute people in the head Holmes?”

“Yes, but-” Then he looked back down at the body of John Watson, with his dark blond hair, average build and average height, his hospital job. So like his John. His fiance John. The John who had been taken as leverage against someone with a personal connection, the John who had been taken by someone rich and powerful enough to trade arms and kidnap someone from an active war zone; and suddenly the truth came crashing down on him.

The man in front of him was far too close to his John to be a coincidence. The shoulder wound made it look like a random shot had hit the man, but it was too clean, too straight, there had been no other bodies, and this John Watson shouldn't ever really have been there at all.

It was a message. From the person who had John.

He was the person that they were trying to get to.

Suddenly it's hard to breathe and he staggers back. “What's wrong with you?” Donovan asked him. “You didn't know him did you?”

“Of course I don't!” He snaps in his best 'don't be an imbecile voice. “Don't you think that if I did I would have mentioned it before now?”

“Well something's obviously wrong.” Sherlock knows better than to mistake her tone for concern.

Some of the forensics officers who saw him regularly were staring and whispering to each other but he ignored her.

Someone powerful enough to kidnap a soldier from an open war zone. That would take someone with Mycroft like levels of influence to pull it off. Someone whom Sherlock had provoked. No-one who did this would be so easily infuriated by his abrasive personality, which was what affronted most people, so it was about his crime solving.

“A Consulting Criminal.” He muttered to himself.

“What?

“It was an execution. I'm going home.” With that, he left.

“He knows something.” Anderson glared after him.

“Drugs bust?” Inquired Sally.

“I think so.” Lestrade sighed in return.

* * *

Sherlock sat in the back of the cab, biting his fingernails. He had four patches on now. A consulting criminal. Someone who spent every day telling others how to murder their 'loved ones' and get away with it.

Someone like that had John. Someone who had murdered an almost innocent man just because they wanted to send a message. Just to get his attention.

Other John had been shot in the shoulder. Was that where John had been shot? Most likely. He tried to annoy the constricting feeling in his chest at that thought.

A wound like that could be easily fatal, as proved by Other John. Certainly monstrously painful.

He tried not to imagine John, HIS JOHN, hurt, cold, and in the clutches of a mad man. He knew that that John would never admit it, but he would be lonely, and afraid, no doubt hoping that Sherlock himself would save him.

His only comfort was that John had most likely been kept alive. If he was dead, it would most likely be his body on the floor of the warehouse right now. Not to mention the person behind this was obviously smart. They wouldn't give up a powerful bargaining chip like that if they could help it. Not before their little game was finished.

It was obviously a game as well. They were playing with him. There was no other reason for taking John, other than to show the sheer range of their purview.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scotland Yard gain a bit of empathy.

As soon as he gets home he adds another nicotine patch. He doesn't even want to think about what John would say to him if he saw him with five patches... but John wasn't here. Which made it a five patch problem.

He texts Mycroft; 'What do you know?' The reply he gets simply says that this person is obviously trying to get to him personally and he only really operates in Britain, that's probably where the criminal operates, lives, and has probably brought John. Sherlock agrees with this but ignores any more texts. Useless. He already knew all of that.

Sherlock was on the sofa for he doesn't know how long, simply trying to figure out who has John. Along with the fact that there had never been any clear link shared between all of the crimes, he has only ever solved two crimes by the same person, and solved them he has, which supports the view that whoever he has aggravated was not personally involved, merely directing the crimes. But he was still spoiling their business.

He thought briefly that perhaps he should tell Lestrade, but he would only slow things down with his 'proper channels.'

As if he heard Sherlock thinking about him, Lestrade stomped up the stairs and into the flat, followed moments later by what seemed like an army of 'very keen' police. He hadn't even heard the coming up the stairs.

“There's no point Lestrade. I don't have any evidence, but I do know-”

“Sir!” Donovan calls from the desk where he'd left his laptop open. 'Damn.'

“He's got an email from John Watson. Dated Friday.” She was looking at Lestrade but he knew that she was thinking about him again. She probably thought the reason he had acted strange this afternoon was because it was his murder.

“You knew the victim?” Lestrade asks as he makes his way over to look at the email.

“Of course I don't!” He throws them a disgusted look. “It' a... different John Watson.”

“Why's he emailing you? Telling you when he's getting back? Don't tell me you actually have a friend!?” Anderson calls incredulously.

“Not exactly.” Seeing Anderson's answering smirk he adds; “He's my fiance.”

Several mouths are hanging wide open at this, and it's Lestrade who eventually manages to choke out a reply.

“You- you... you're engaged? But- We all thought... asexual... never had sex... You've never shown the slightest interest in anyone the whole time we've known you. Nearly three years! Why have we never seen him? Is he real?”

“Of course he's real! He emailed me didn't he?” In exasperation he adds; “Yes I have had sex, no I haven't looked at anyone since you've known me I'm not interested in anyone except John. Why would I be? You haven't seen him because two and a half years ago he was sent to Afghanistan. He's a soldier. RAMC.”

“So you haven't seen him in three years?! Christ how do you wait so long?”

“Because he's John.” Sometimes people could be stupid.

“You were on drugs three years ago. Did he know?”

“The drugs were only after he left. You don't even know what I had to do to stop Mycroft from telling him and if any of you even mention it to him then I will personally destroy you.” He glared at them in a clear message that he was NOT joking.

“You started taking A-class drugs just because your boyfriend left you?”

“He didn't leave me!” Sherlock was getting angry now. He didn't want people to think that John didn't love him, or that he didn't love John. “Since you read the email, you should know that he was COMING BACK.”

“Then where is he?”

“I don't know.” His face purposely expressionless.

“Ha! So he has left you.” Anderson said sardonically.

“He was reported MIA on Friday, a week before he was supposed to come home.”

The room went dead quiet. No one quite knew what to say to that.

Eventually Sally asked, “So you're telling us it's just coincidence that our Vic and your boyfriend have the same name.”

“No OF COURSE it isn't. Same approximate age, height, hair colour and build, a nurse, when John is a doctor?

“It's obvious that someone is trying to send a message. To me. Personally. I've done something that they don't like and now John is suffering for it. Judging from the body you found I'm presuming that he has been shot in the shoulder. It's also very possible that that is not where it has ended.” He didn't let his voice break on the last part.

“The mastermind behind this is a consulting criminal, and I've been solving all his crimes for you. A dangerous one, with the kind of resources that mean that he can kidnap a capable soldier from the middle of a war zone.”

Again there was silence at this, until suddenly, a young PC was bounding up the stairs holding a small, fat envelope.

“Sir, a man just dropped this off for him.” He addressed Lestrade and pointed at Sherlock.

“Pass it to me. Who gave it to you?”

“I don't remember, he was a UPS guy.”

Sherlock refrained from rolling his eyes purely because he was now concentrating on the package in his hands.

A thick, hand made envelope. His name written down in expensive ink. Feminine handwriting. Feminine, but not a woman. There is nothing on the envelope with his address, and there was no outer envelope either, confirming his suspicions that it wasn't a real UPS man, though he knew it would be pointless to question the PC anymore. He wouldn't be able to remember anything useful.

'It must be from them,' he knew.

He quickly tore open the envelope and tipped the contents out onto his hand. It's an iphone. A pink iphone, like the one that belonged to that woman from the serial suicide case. Before the cabbie had been taken away by the police, Sherlock had managed to get a name out of him. He had been working with a man named Moriarty.

The phone suddenly began to ring. Instantly he pressed the green phone to answer the call, and at a look from Lestrade he turned it on to speaker phone.

“Moriarty.” He says. It was an educated guess, but he made it sound like a fact.

Lestrade gave him another look but he doesn't even notice, as that is the moment, when, staring intently at the phone, he hears his voice.

“Ooh aren't you clever?” There is a mocking tone to the words, but not in the voice. The voice sounds sad, and pained.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Threats are made.

John. It devastated him to hear John's voice sound like that, and for it to be all his fault.

“John, tell me where you are quickly. Tell me everything you can see! I'll find you. I'll come and get you! I promise.”

“Oh Sherlock, you really think it's going to be that easy? No, you'll have to work a little harder than that to get your little dog back.” His words are choked and marred by pain.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to back off. But we both know that you're not going to do that, don't we? Not if I just ask you nicely, so I thought I would find a better way to send the message.”

“Let him go.” It wasn't a request.

“Ah, my... my mouthpiece. Yes I went on holiday last week. It was a bit too hot for me but I did come back with a lovely souvenir. I think I broke him though, he was a bit hard to catch so I had to shoot him.”

Sherlock's hands were shaking with rage now.

“If you hurt him, I'll-”

“You'll do what, Sherlock?” He can hear John swallow loudly in between shallow, pained gasps.

“You don't know who I am, or where I am. You don't know where Johnny-boy is...” Another deep swallow. “You don't know how much C4 he's wearing right now.”

“I'll find you. I'll find you and I'll make your life unbelievable.”

“What? If I do thi-”

John didn't even get to finish that sentence before a piercing scream of pain is pouring out of the speakers.

It's a raw, pained cream that has everyone staring at the phone in horror. Sherlock closed his eyes and sucked in deep breaths. It didn't help.

He stopped screaming eventually, and all that could be heard was harsh breathing as he tried to get his breath back.

“If you don't... stop... I'll... I'll stop John Watson... S- Stop his heart.”

The detectives face was white and for a moment it felt like his heart had stopped.

“I'll... I'll tell you what, If you want, we'll play one last game... you... you and me, and if you win, you can have Johnny back. If not, then you get to scrape him off the floor.”

“NO!” He couldn't help the outburst when he imagined John, charred pieces of him spread all over the room.

“Oh? So you don't want to play?” John sounds afraid now. He is hiding it well but Sherlock knows him inside and out. “Maybe I should just- do it right now.”

“I'll play! I'll play.”

“Well... you'd better get on with it.” He is speaking even slower now. “Poor Johnny lost a lot of blood when he was shot... bullet hit the subclavian. I had him fixed, but well, my man just now wasn't really being very careful and it looks like it's started... started bleeding again. Poor thing, can barely keep his eyes open, can't move a muscle, ever so pale. You should hurry Sherlock. I've left you a clue in 221 C Baker Street.”

There was a sudden tone that signaled that John's end of the phone has been hung up.

Sherlock ignored the yells after him as he raced down to Mrs Hudson's, and banged his fist against the door loudly.

When she answered the door, he demanded the key to the basement flat, she gave in fairly quickly to the panicked man, who rudely grabbed the key from her and raced down the stairs to the uninhabited basement flat.

Bursting in through the doors he found a pair of shoes. Trainers. Eighties. Genuine eighties, not just retro. Eighties. Shoes... CARL POWERS! It had been the first case that he had tried to solve, although of course no-one had listened, he had been too young. Even John had been a little unsure as to whether there really was anything going on.

He was the only one who had thought so. This must have been John's kidnapper's first attempt at murder? One of them surely? He was showing Sherlock just how long he had been foiling him.

Behind him, more footsteps.

“What have you got?” Lestrade.

He can't risk John's safety by letting the police bungle the situation. No, he would have to deflect them.

“Trainers. Eighties. John is being held in some kind of sports center, built in the Eighties. Somewhere with a running track. You should start looking.”

Lestrade, to his credit, didn't waste any time ordering his people to get going and get on with it.

“Is there anything else?”

“No,” Sherlock barely whispered the last part, “Please hurry.”

Lestrade froze for a moment, seeing the cold, almost emotionless man he knew showing such an emotional side. He didn't know that Sherlock had been lying to him, but he knew without a doubt that the emotions he was finally showing; were without a doubt real.

He had never known Sherlock to truly care about another person, certainly not himself, but there was no doubt about it now.

He took off without another word.

Sherlock however, merely went back upstairs to his flat. He had told the police a lie. He already knew exactly where he had to go to find John. The swimming pool where his career had began. The swimming pool where Carl Powers had drowned.

Quickly bringing up his site he posted a new message. 'Midnight.'

He refreshed it until a reply emerged. It took less that a minute. 'See you there.'

“Yes. You. Will.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reunion and a showdown at the pool.

It was five minutes to midnight as Sherlock entered the pool.

He had noticed some plain clothes policemen following him, as well as some of Mycroft's. He lost the police easily enough, but Mycroft's he let follow him. Usually he would not want Mycroft to interfere in his business, but this was not a regular situation.

Once he was inside he would not be able to contact anyone without Moriarty noticing, John at least would need an ambulance, and he couldn't call any of them ahead of time without risk of being stopped. With Mycroft's interference, he could be fairly sure that backup would arrive when he needed it.

It was dark in the pool room, but the lights in the pool itself were switched on, sending flickering shadows all across the walls. He span round a couple of times, looking around for any sign of John or Moriarty.

Suddenly he heard footsteps and a stall door opened and John stepped out, wearing a huge dark green parka.

His eyes were glazed over with pain, and his face was pale underneath his light tan. His legs were shaking with the effort of holding up his own weight. Even in the state that he was in, Sherlock couldn't help but drink him in. He hadn't seen him in almost three years after all. So many small changes since the last time that they had seen each other.

John's hair was slightly longer than it had been when he had left, but still militarily short. His skin was slightly tanned and sun damaged. He looked slightly thinner than when he was left, but nothing too noticeable. There were tiny scars on his hands, and callouses on his palms. A thousand tiny changes but the sum was still the same. In some ways John looked completely different, and in some ways it looked as though he hadn't changed at all.

The look in his eyes was almost unbearable. He was afraid, but at the same time, relieved. Relieved that Sherlock was there, making him feel safer. He thought that he could rely on him to get them both out of there, which only made Sherlock feel guiltier. This whole thing was his fault. John shouldn't be relieved to see him.

John was also leaning towards him slightly, as though he couldn't wait to touch him again all this time, and Sherlock knew that John saw him doing it too. He was desperate to reach out to the man. To hold him up.

“Nice to see you.” John begins to speak words that are so obviously not his own. His speech is slow with pauses, obviously waiting for the voice speaking into the bluetooth device on the side of his head. His voice was even more strained than before. “Johnny-boy is very pleased. He's a good little dog, still following orders even now. He hasn't got long I reckon. I'm surprised he can even still stand up.”

John opens the parka to reveal a heavy set of C4 on a vest, and even more horrific, was his shoulder. It was covered in blood. Soaked to the skin. It was no wonder he was so pale, it looked like he was drained almost completely of blood!

“Who are you? What do you want from him?”

“From him? Your little dog? Nothing.”

A door opened at the other end of the pool opened and a dark haired man in a sharp suit stepped out. “From you? I want you to stop interfering.”

There was a marked change in tone as the voice speaking turned from John's forcibly calm one to Moriarty's angry one.

Sherlock assumed that this man must be Moriarty himself. It was disarming slightly just how unassuming the man looked. He was average height, small to average build, fairly handsome and obviously quite rich, but nothing that Sherlock didn't see fifty times a day in London. He could have been any of them. Before now even he himself could have easily passed him on the street and had no idea.

It didn't escape his notice that they had now both seen his face and heard his voice, it was unlikely that they'd be allowed to leave.

“Let me take John, and I'll stop.”

“Oh but we both know you won't...” His voice had changed again. Now it was high and lilting. Jovial, even. “You'll get bored, you'll- you'll want revenge for John.” Here John looked him in the eye and shook his head slightly, clearly trying to tell Sherlock that whatever happened, he shouldn't risk his life by going after this man. That he wouldn't want him to do that. “Something will happen and you'll start up all over again. I'm sorry Sherlock, I like you, I really do, but I'm afraid you can't be allowed to continue. Johnny here is just collateral damage I'm afraid. He was the best way to get you where I wanted you.”

He had walked up behind John now, and he kicked him in the back of the knee, sending the other man crashing to the floor with a gasp of pain.

Sherlock instantly stepped forward but was stopped by Moriarty. “Ah ah ah~hh!” he sang, waggling a finger at the detective.

“You don't get to touch him, until I SAY you get to touch him.” Authoritarian again.

Sherlock watched as Moriarty walked around John in a circle, his eyes never leaving Sherlock's own. “So Sherlock have you enjoyed my little game? You don't look very happy. I thought you'd be pleased that I brought John back early for you!”

Sherlock doesn't rise to the bait and merely grits his teeth. He wants to yell at the man about how stupid it would be to think that he ever would want this. But he stops himself because he knows that Moriarty knows. He knows that he is only doing it to get a reaction from him. He almost can't stop himself when he sees Moriarty's foot lifting off the ground slightly, right next to John's wounded shoulder, and it's obvious what the man intends to do.

Suddenly, the grin was wiped from Moriarty's face as his mobile began to ring and he pulled it from his pocket.

Sherlock let out a relieved breath as the criminal's sank back to the tile floor.

“Oh dear Sherlock, it looks as if you were followed, so I'm afraid that we need to cut our little meeting short. So sorry.” His face contorted in mock guilt.

“Chow!”

And then he was gone. Just like that.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Sherlock rushed over immediately to where John was on the floor, trying to push himself up with his good arm, but too weak to do so. He pulled him up and dragged the injured man out of the bomb vest, throwing it away.

He screamed in pain as his wound was aggravated but the bomb was all that Sherlock could concentrate on.

“John,” It was half whispered, and he pulled the other man to him so that he was laying in his arms against his chest. He put a kiss on his forehead and shook the man gently, trying not to disturb his shoulder again, merely trying to rouse him.

“John, wake up! We need to-”

That was when he heard it. A mobile phone ringing. A cheap Nokia ringtone, and it was coming from the bomb vest.

If they hadn't have been by the pool side, or if John had have still been wearing the vest, they never would have survived.

As it was Sherlock had mere seconds to roll them both into the pool before there was fire rolling overhead and the air was on fire.

He felt John struggle against him weakly. He was drowning, but Sherlock held him tighter until the fire started to disappear.

As soon as he thought it was safe he pulled John up with him and dragged tin a deep breath, the incinerated air burning his lungs.

He swam them both over to the edge of the pool and lifted himself not letting go of John and heaving the other waterlogged man out after him.

He gasped as his lungs filled once again, the hot burning replacing the anaerobic burning that had come from his self imposed suffocation.

John didn’t.

As soon as he got them onto the side Sherlock rolled John over and checked on him. There was no pulse, his eyes were closed and he wasn't breathing.

Without hesitation, he began CPR, holding John's nose closed as he forced air into John's lungs through his mouth, then doing chest compressions.

He felt more than one of John's ribs fracture and even crack under his desperate hands, but it was worth it when John suddenly choked out half a gallon of chlorinated water, his eyes remained closed but at least he was breathing again, albeit shallowly. Sherlock almost collapsed when he felt John’s neck and felt a slow, weak beating.

More blood began sluggishly leaking from his torn stitches in his shoulder as his heart began to pump again.

'Moriarty had said that he had been followed. Mycroft obviously. So where the hell was he?!'

His muscles ached from his lack of air, but he picked himself up off the floor and hoisted John up with him.

He was a lot stronger than he looked, but right now he couldn't pick John up completely, so he settled more slinging one of John's arms around his neck and one around his waist, dragging the slowly dying man towards the exit.

There was fire everywhere, on bits of wood from the stalls and from bits of ceiling that had fallen in during the explosion.

Both exits were blocked. There was nothing that he could do. There was no way out. For either of them. He was going to die. John was going to die, and when he did, it would be all Sherlock's fault.

As another chunk of ceiling fell down, narrowly missing the two of them, he pulled John against the wall so that he was less in harm's way.

He slid down the wall himself until he was sat on the floor, lower than the cloud of smoke that billowed through the room and he pulled John flush against him, until he could feel the other man's labored breathing against his own neck. He wrapped himself around John as tightly as he could.

It was unlikely that they would burn to death, more likely that they would die from smoke inhalation. It wasn't so bad, he supposed. Better than being blown up. It would be almost like going to sleep, and he would die with John in his arms. There really was no better way than that, he just wished that they had had longer. Much, much, longer.

As for John, he would be unconscious for the whole thing. He wouldn't realise that he was choking, that he was dying, or that Sherlock was dying either.

If it were possible, he gripped the smaller man even tighter. John let out a small noise of protest at the pressure on his shoulder and ribs, but it didn't really matter. Not anymore.

Tears began to run down his face, and he couldn't be sure if they were only from the smoke. He thought probably not.

He began to feel lightheaded, before he finally heard something. What was that... Voices?


End file.
